Emerging Mobility Evaluation Report Evaluating Emerging Mobility Services and Technologies in San Francisco

APRIL, 2018

DRAFT

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S A N F R A N C I S C O C O U N T Y T R A N S P O R T A T I O N A U T H O R I T Y

1455 Market Street, 22nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103tel 415.522.4800 fax 415.522.4829email info@sfcta.org web www.sfcta.org

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We wish to thank the following individuals who contributed to the development of this report:

SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY

Warren Logan, Senior Planner Tilly Chang, Executive Director Jeff Hobson, Deputy Director of Planning Joe Castiglione, Deputy Director of Technology, Data and Analysis Drew Cooper, Senior Planner Michelle Beaulieu, Senior Planner

SAN FRANCISCO MUNICIPAL TRANSPORTATION AGENCY

Ed Reiskin, Director of Transportation Tom Maguire, Director of Sustainable Streets Division Viktoriya Wise, Chief of Staff, Sustainable Streets Division Darton Ito, Director of Innovation Danielle Harris, Senior Planner Darryl Yip, Assistant Planner Sarah Jones, Planning Director Kate Toran, Director of Taxis and Accessible Services Annette Williams, Accessible Services Program Manager Lisa Walton, Chief Technology Officer Rhett Paranay, Assistant Performance Analyst

WSP

Rachel Zack Karlina Wu Sierra Laventure-Volz Katharina McLaughlin

PEER REVIEWERS

Susan Cleveland-Knowles, Deputy City Attorney, General Counsel to the SFMTA

Timothy Doherty, SFMTA Senior Planner

Mari Hunter, SFMTA Senior Planner

Alex Jonlin, SFMTA Assistant Planner

John Knox-White, SFMTA Planning Programs & Education Manager

Heath Maddox, SFMTA Senior Planner

Carli Paine, SFMTA Land Use Development and Transportation Integration Manager

Sandra Padilla, SFMTA Senior Planner

Lars Peters, SF Environment Senior Zero Emissions Vehicle Advisor

Ryan Reeves, SFMTA Associate Planner

Kathleen Sakelaris, SFMTA Regulatory Affairs Manager

Andy Thornley, SFMTA Senior Analyst

ContentsExecutive Summary _________________________ i

Final Report

Foreword ___________________________________ v

Introduction ________________________________ 1

1. Defining Emerging Mobility __________________ 2

2. Policy Framework for Emerging Mobility _______ 6

3. Evaluating Emerging Mobility in San Francisco __ 8

4. Evaluation Results by Guiding Principle _______ 15

5. Evaluation Results by Service Type ___________ 41

6. Recommendations ________________________ 68

Appendices

A. Additional Policies and Next Steps ___________ 78

B. Research Opportunities ____________________ 82

C. Pilot Opportunities ________________________ 85

The preparation of this report has been financed through a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. Content of this report does not necessarily reflect the official views or policy of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARYNew technologies are rapidly enabling innovations in transportation modes and services. These technologies include ride hailing services such as Lyft and Uber; microtransit services such as Chariot; courier network services such as Postmates; and autonomous vehicle technologies. In some cases, these new services complement San Francisco’s policies and goals; in other cases, they conflict.

This report takes the first comprehensive look at the rapidly evolving emerging mobility sector in San Francisco. This report establishes an inventory of services operating in San Francisco, a set of Guiding Principles for emerging mobility services and technologies, and evaluates how these services and technologies align with the city’s long-range transportation goals in relation to a healthy environment, livability, economic competitiveness, and world-class infrastructure, and through trans-portation lenses such as equity and affordability. This report provides a framework allowing the city to strike a balance be-tween the emerging mobility sector and the city’s Guiding Principles. Numerous recommended policies, pilots and research contained in this report will allow San Francisco to actively partner with emerging mobility providers to jointly improve our transportation system.

The results of this report will inform ConnectSF (the city’s long-range transportation plan) and the next update of the San Francisco Transportation Plan (SFTP); provide a roadmap for guiding future Transportation Authority policies and initia-tives in the emerging mobility sector; and, inform the SFMTA Emerging Mobility Strategy Report.

Defining Emerging MobilityThe following are the different service and technology types and examples of each.

TYPE OF SERVICE EXAMPLES OF SERVICE PROVIDERS (BOLDED COMPANIES ARE ACTIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO)

Electric Standing Scooter Sharing

Bird, Lime, Spin *

Bike sharing B-Cycle, Bluegogo, Bay Area Bike Share/Ford GoBike (operated by Motivate), JUMP Bike (operated by Social Bicycles), Limebike, Scoot, Zagster

Scooter Sharing Renault’s Twizy, Scoot, Toyota’s iRoad

Car sharing Car2go, Getaround, GIG, Maven, Zipcar

Ride sharing Blablacar, Scoop, Tripda, Waze Carpool

Ride hailing Flywheel, Lyft, Uber, Via

Microtransit Bridj, Chariot, Leap, Night School, Via**

Courier Network Services Amazon’s Flex, Caviar, FedEx, Good Eggs, Grubhub, Instacart, Postmates, Omni, UPS

TYPE OF TECHNOLOGIES EXAMPLES OF TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS (BOLDED COMPANIES ARE ACTIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO)

Autonomous Vehicles Cruise/GM, EasyMile, Ford, Lyft, Mercedes, Renault/Nissan, Navia, Nvidia, Tesla, Uber, Waymo, Zoox***

Robots + Drones Amazon Prime Air, Marble, Starship

* Electric standing scooter sharing was not included in the evaluation because their service was introduced after the evaluation period ** Bridj, Leap and Night School are no longer in operation but are presented as examples of microtransit services*** The full list of autonomous vehicle developers and their activities is currently unknown

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Executive Summary | Page ii

Safety Emerging Mobility Services and Technologies

must be consistent with the City and County of

San Francisco’s goal for achieving Vision Zero,

reducing conflicts, and ensuring public safety

and security.

Transit Emerging Mobility Services and Technologies

must support and account for, rather than

compete with, public transit and encourage use

of high-occupancy modes.

Equitable Access

Emerging Mobility Services and Technologies

must promote equitable access to services. All

people, regardless of age, race, color, gender,

sexual orientation and identity, national ori-

gin, religion, or any other protected category,

should benefit from Emerging Mobility Ser-

vices and Technologies, and groups who have

historically lacked access to mobility benefits

must be prioritized and should benefit most.

Disabled Access

Emerging Mobility Services and Technologies

must be inclusive of persons with disabilities.

Those who require accessible vehicles, physical

access points, services, and technologies are

entitled to receive the same or comparable level

of access as persons without disabilities.

SustainabilityEmerging Mobility Services and Technologies

must support sustainability, including helping

to meet the city’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emis-

sions reduction goals, promote use of all non-

auto modes, and support efforts to increase the

resiliency of the transportation system.

Congestion Emerging Mobility Services and Technologies

must consider the effects on traffic congestion,

including the resulting impacts on road safety,

modal choices, emergency vehicle response

time, transit performance, and reliability.

Accountability Emerging Mobility Services and Technologies

providers must share relevant data so that the

city and the public can effectively evaluate the

services’ benefits to and impacts on the trans-

portation system, and determine whether the

services reflect the goals of San Francisco.

Labor Emerging Mobility Services and Technologies

must ensure fairness in pay and labor policies

and practices. Emerging Mobility Services and

Technologies should support San Francisco’s

local hire principles, promote equitable job

training opportunities, and maximize procure-

ment of goods and services from disadvan-

taged business enterprises.

Financial Impact

Emerging Mobility Services and Technolo-

gies must promote a positive financial impact

on the city’s infrastructure investments and

delivery of publicly-provided transportation

services.

Collaboration Emerging Mobility Services and Technology

providers and the city must engage and col-

laborate with each other and the community to

improve the city and its transportation system.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR EMERGING MOBILITY In June 2017, the Transportation Authority and the SFMTA adopted ten Guiding Principles to serve as a framework for eval-uating emerging mobility services and technologies, identifying 10 ways to meet city goals, and shape future areas of studies, policies, and programs. The vision is for emerging mobility services and technologies to align with the Guiding Principles on balance. However, not every Guiding Principle may be relevant to each service or technology type.

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Executive Summary | Page iii

EVALUATING EMERGING MOBILITYUsing the adopted Guiding Principles for Emerging Mobility Services and Technologies, the Transportation Authority collabo-rated with the SFMTA, the emerging mobility industry, and community stakeholders to develop a series of evaluation criteria related to the ten Guiding Principles. That criteria included quantitative, outcome-based questions and policy and design features associated with the service and mobile application.

Evaluation results summary1. Pilots and permits lead to better performance

Companies that have performed pilots with San Francisco public agencies have provided data and experience that has informed development of permit systems for those mobility types. The resulting permit systems for bike share, scooter share, and microtransit have guided these mobility types to be more aligned with the Guiding Principles. There are op-portunities to strengthen and harmonize the various permit programs. In addition, the City does not yet have a standard-ized process to proactively conduct pilots and incorporate innovative service types and new companies into the city’s permitting and planning systems.

2. Inadequate data

The city does not have adequate data from enough emerging mobility companies to fully evaluate how well emerging mo-bility services are aligned with our Guiding Principles. Other researchers have produced important studies and findings about some emerging mobility services, but more traveler trip data and surveys are needed to characterize SF travel markets and individual traveler choices.

3. Opportunities for equitable access

Many emerging mobility services are available during late-night hours, on weekends, and/or in areas less well covered by public transit. This may provide opportunities to increase mobility for people with disabilities and increase access for people underserved by public transit.

4. Conflicts with public transit

San Francisco is a Transit-First city, but inadequate data means we do not have comprehensive information on how the emerging mobility sector is impacting transit ridership or our capital investments. While some services play a useful first/last-mile connection role, no emerging mobility com-panies have implemented design features or policies that our methodology identified as directly supportive of transit.

5. Impacts on safety

With the exception of Microtransit providers, operator training is inconsistent among emerging mobility services; almost no providers test operators following training. As a consequence, many services may exhibit roadway conflicts at curbs, in transit-priority lanes and on sidewalks - all of which may have significant impacts, particularly on vulner-able roadways users. Additionally, many emerging mobility services may contribute to distracted driving, which also de-creases roadway safety.

6. Impacts on congestion

Because we have inadequate data, we do not fully understand how this sector is impacting travel mode choice behavior and congestion. We do know that many emerging mobility ser-vices rely on city rights-of-way and curbs. The city and the emerging mobility companies have not consistently coordi-nated to develop a robust curb management approach. Other researchers have found mixed impacts. For ride-hailing in particular, our TNCs Today study found that ride-hail ve-hicles in San Francisco are concentrated during times of day and neighborhoods of the city where traffic is most congest-ed. A UC Davis study found that adoption of ride-hailing is likely to result in a net increase in vehicle miles traveled due to competition with public transit. Other studies have found that users of other mobility services chose to drive personal vehicles less frequently.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. PartnerProactively PartnerThe SFMTA and the Transportation Authority should de-velop a framework for emerging mobility pilots that consid-ers this study’s evaluation results and encourages the city to proactively partner with companies to develop innovative solutions to address unmet city transportation needs. This framework should consider partnerships with transporta-tion companies, employers, developers, and civic and neigh-borhood organizations.

2. MeasureCollect Emerging Mobility Data and Conduct ResearchSan Francisco public agencies should develop a data report-ing and warehouse strategy to coordinate and consolidate existing data streams. Additionally, the city should employ a travel decision study to understand travel behavior. Such a study could be combined with a mobile application pilot that studies traveler choices and factors that inform them.

3. RegulateRegulate and Recover CostsThe SFMTA should harmonize existing permit programs re-lated to emerging mobility and create a framework for new services. The emerging mobility permit program should administer a permit fee that considers the full cost to plan for and regulate these services. Similarly, the city should seek regulatory and/or impact fees to mitigate effects these services have on safety, city resources and investments, as warranted by research studies. The permit must also require a standard set of data necessary to conduct ongoing evalu-ation of these services and include standards for equitable provision of services to underserved areas and to people with disabilities.

4. BridgeBridge Mobility and Access GapsThe city should develop a user study to more clearly under-stand who uses emerging mobility services and for what pur-poses. This study should focus on equity gaps for low-income users and issues related to disabled access. The SFMTA and the Transportation Authority should also develop pilots to fill mobility and access gaps, such as for paratransit, late night transportation, school-related transportation, and in areas less well-covered by public transit.

5. PrioritizeSupport and Prioritize Public TransitThe Transportation Authority and the SFMTA should contin-ue to support the expansion of transit-priority facilities. The Transportation Authority and the SFMTA should collabo-rate in developing a series of studies related to rights-of-way prioritization, vehicle miles traveled, financial impacts, and cost-recovery. To support these studies, the Transportation Authority and the SFMTA should conduct pilot programs that improve first and last mile connectivity to transit sta-tions.

6. EnforceEnforce Safe StreetsThe SFMTA and the Police Department should increase enforcement of known emerging mobility conflict areas throughout the city and consider piloting enforcement blitz-es to encourage safe operation. Similarly, they should seek legislative authority and implement a pilot that automates enforcement to promote safety, ensure more systematic ad-herence to traffic rules, and reduce enforcement costs. The SFMTA should also develop a Vision Zero study that stud-ies collision rate trends and unsafe operations, determines whether there is a correlation with emerging mobility ser-vices, and identifies recommendations to reduce traffic fa-talities.

7. PriceManage Congestion at Curbs and on City RoadwaysThe SFMTA and the Transportation Authority should priori-tize developing a curb management strategy that allocates and prices curb access appropriately. Such a strategy should be supported by curb management pilots with emerging mo-bility services and through a curb management prioritiza-tion study. The SFMTA should also develop and implement an emerging mobility streets design guide to reduce modal conflicts. Finally, based on current congestion levels on San Francisco roadways, San Francisco should move toward im-plementing a decongestion pricing and incentives system, whether through cordons or roadway user fees, to manage roadway congestion.

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Executive Summary | Page iv